From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee!
by TrekDr
Summary: A challenge response to a picture I hope is on tumblr, and the maker might link in a comment! A complete brain explosion! What would happen if Janeway caught up with Khan on Ceti 5? Maybe? Borrows script from wrath of khan, Moby Dick, dante's Inferno and voyager. TY for the borrow!


_"Honestly, I have never written to order before, but I was shown a pic of Khan and KJ in the cargo bay at the start of the wrath of khan, and against my better judgement, was persuaded to have a go. This is a piece of total silliness! I am just going to start and see where it finishes, may Roddenberry forgive me. [not my characs etc] Some quotes lifted from The Wrath of Khan, and misquotes from varous episodes of Voyager too. Thankyou to the original script writers._

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'What the hell am I doing here?' Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager took stock of her unexpected surroundings.

A hand to her forehead as she gazed around in shock. She couldn't feel any sense of engines, warp or impulse. This vessel appeared to be at a dead stop. Actually, it felt like it was grounded.

And it clearly wasn't one of hers. Or any that she had been in.

Thank goodness for that! She couldn't blame this one on Chakotay! A relief, as B'Elanna was beginning to be more than feisty about his record of desecrating her shuttles, and wasting her engineer's time! 'fender benders' as Tom insisted on calling them, well, until Chakotay nearly swung a punch. Even in her current position, she can't help a small smirk.

She stalks around the cargo bay, filled with equipment that looks ancient, tricorder active and cataloguing. The equipment is only semi functional at best, and has an unusual molecular signature. Her hand traces gently across the sand on the shelf of books. A reader like her with a collection of antiquarian books. Hmmm Moby Dick. Oh! the book cuts too close to her recent disgrace. Her hand is removed as if burned.

Now is not the time to review her vendetta against Ransom. Really.

A chess set, a plex container with sand, her tricorder recognises a ceti eel. unfortunate! She certainly has heard of those. Investigation suggests they are alive, she stuns them for good measure.

Rewind Janeway! Her mind is very slowly putting together the unusual molecular signatures and the presence of a ceti eel. She doesnt like where this is heading. Hell's Teeth!

'janeway to away team', the blasted thing didn't even register!

'janeway to voyager', still nothing. It is as dead as... whoever or whatever has parked her here will be when she finds them!

This was just not good enough. 'Kathryn to Chakotay' she said and put all her thought into it, in the hope that the, well, sense of presence between them might just let that one through.

Nothing, huh! She finally let her hand drop to her side in disgust. It was pointless to keep beating her chest, and it would only cause a bruise. She knew, it had happened before.

She dropped to a handy seat, and placed her head in her hands. Time to think and reason her way from here. OK, first principles. She was unharmed, she had a tricorder and a phaser. For God's sake! Who would trap her with a tricorder and phaser? She could get out of here, well, wherever here was. How did she come to be here?

The pulsing at the back of her head suggested a temporal migraine. Damn, but she hated temporal migraines! Well, any head issues since those darned Srivani needles. Unfortunately, the signature and the Ceti eel also suggested the Alpha Quadrant This should have been a cause for celebration, but dammit! Wrong time! Yet again!

Worse still, no crew, no Chakotay. She doesn't need Chakotay, Tuvok, or the rest of them, but dammit, life is better with them.

There is also something else, a niggling memory of lessons learnt. Then it hits her: the SS Botany Bay. James T. Kirk, again!

Although she remembers telling her team she would have liked to have ridden shotgun with Kirk following her meld with Tuvok and time on Sulu's ship, she would have preferred the situation to be more... controllable. She was hoping for a holoprogramme to be honest.

Damn! How did she get here? The tricorder doesn't register any chronitons, displacement waves or anomalous energy signatures.

Her inner scientist is interrupted by something heavy lurching against the door. She would make herself inconsipicuous, but there seems little point. The person, hard to tell whether male or female, has pushed through, allowing the everpresent sand to flow in.

Ceti Alpha V, yes, that is the planet! Damn! There is going to be no easy getting out of here. Her memory runs through the Genesis story.

And this is likely to be...

...Khan.

And as he strips off his outer layer and turns to face her, she is surprised by the magnetic effect he has. It is not his features, not that she is reluctant to consider older lovers, even ones with the reputation of an aging lothario, nor his well sculpted body, surprising though that is. Hmm, yes, she could consider some... shore leave. He has an aura. It makes her stand straighter and go to position, toe to toe.

No one intimidates Kathryn Janeway.

And she has her own aura. One that, she thinks, is affecting him.

She allows Khan to take what he thinks is his measure of her. She knows the Augments, their increased ability to analyze facial expression, pheremone tells. She damn well hopes he underestimates her. After all, he is way before her time. That thought allows her to relax slightly, and smooth her face entirely. After all, she has lived with Seven for some years now, and has learned some tricks in deception.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

His opening gambit is a surprise to her. She has seen his collection of books, clearly he is widely read. It is slightly disarming, she allows a quirk of a smile with a raised eyebrow to show her appreciation.

"But," he drawls, "that uniform is not one that I am familiar with." His impassive face gives no clue to where this is going, as he sweeps his eyes over her, lingering on those four pips. but she has dealt with magnetic, dangerous types before. She knows not to underestimate him, and not to let down her guard.

"So, where have you come from?" and his voice resonates with a hint of menace.

"It is not down on any map; true places never are." She risks a salvo from what she is sure is his book.

It is true, in a manner of speaking. At this time there is no knowledge of what might be in the Delta Quadrant. Hell, there is no knowledge now other than that Voyager has gained. and she quirks a complete smile at him.

"Kathryn." and holds out her hand "Somewhat displaced." she quips.

She has him disoriented by her about face and trust. Not that he gives any acknowledgment to the book. It is only momentarily, but long enough to see that his weak point is as she suspected. He has been on this world for too long. It is a cruel and unusual punishment, one that would see her wipe the floor with James Tiberius Kirk, had that been possible. To trap a people on a world, and make no attempt to ensure that they remained safe. Heaven only knows what they have had to do to survive.

Eat the damned Ceti eels, she thinks.

He is starved of new company, new ideas. He is bored of existing.

He shakes her hand, strong and firm. He hesitates, clearly wondering whether to overpower her. What would be the point? currently, she is as stuck here as he is.

She releases his hold, and, to his surprise, turns and sits. "Can a gal get a coffee anywhere around here?"

The non sequitor again surprises him, he has been used to being in charge , being in control of the conversation. Not only that, but her clear imperviability to his hidden menace disarms him. She watches him ponder his next move, whilst her brain is also taking in that expanse of honed, bare chest, feeling relieved that her crewmen do not dress similarly. Not that it wouldn't suit them, but that she might have greater difficulty concentrating if presented with Chakotay's bare chest on a regular basis.

She can see it when Khan makes the decision to take charge. He stands taller, slightly puffing out that chest she has been observing, though why it has so many chains on it she is not sure! He is in for a surprise, she is used to sitting whilst imposing men stand before her, trying to intimidate, and she gives him the look usually reserved for Harry and Tom, when they are planning to be particularly foolish.

"Do you know to whom you speak?" he declaims, and she raises an eyebrow and nods whilst pursing her lips.

"Why have you come to our...paradise lost?" she allows a slight smile. He knows Milton. Very well read then, perhaps.

"I haven't come. I have... appeared. There is no way out through me, and maybe not for me, either." He starts to demand that she tell him, but she shakes her head.

"This isn't where I would have wanted to go. I am here maybe due to a microsingluarlity, a discontinuity in the space-time continuum, maybe even the capriciousness of a semi-omnipotent being' and she really hopes that if it is Q that that might annoy him enough to appear. 'threats are...irrelevant'. She waves her hands dismissively.

He tries to look menacing, but if that is his best, she has seen far worst! She nearly grins, but remembers from her experince with Chaotica that grandiloquent males with a power fixation don't respond well. She is, after all, quite a skilled diplomat. She watches as he moves towards the tank of hopefully still-stunned Ceti eels.

"Allow me introduce you to Ceti Alpha V's only remaining —indigenous— lifeform. ...What do you think? They've killed twenty of my people, including my beloved wife. ...Oh, not all at once, ...and not ...instantly, to be sure. ...You see, their young enter through the ears ...and wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex...This has the effect of rendering the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion. Later, ...they grow, ...follows madness. ...And death."

He waves a surgical instrument around his ear during this frankly stomach-churning speech, and she is quite glad that she stunned those eels.

She stands to her full height, albeit some inches shorter, and raises her chin for the face-off.

'Mr Khan, I feel that I should tell you that I don't like threats, I don't like bullies, and if you continue on this vein of posturing and intimidation, I will very shortly not like you." and she is rather pleased that he looks taken aback.

All these years just with his devoted acolytes have left him completely unprepared for an interruption to his monologues, particularly such a negative one.

"You see, Khan..." she steps forward, and with an 'allow me' gently spoken, removes the said surgical instrument and places back on the counter. "I think we would be better spending whatever limited time we have together in a more... congenial way? Don't you think?"

She gives him the sucker-punch look whilst placing a hand on his arm. It so totally works, every time. Particularly when she has dropped an octave and husked her speech.

As Khan looks at her, undecided, she gives him her quizzical, semi pleading smile.

"Think: Why don't you use this time to tell the world your side of your story?" and she squeezes his arm. "I can be quite... pleasing...company..." and she sees the decision as he chooses to shout a laugh.

He escorts her to sit down, chauvenist or gentleman, and offers her a drink of...something, most likely alcoholic. Yes, definitely alcoholic.

"Made this yourself?" she asks with an arch smile. He intensely looks back at her as he swallows a shot as something of a dare.

And Captain Kathryn Janeway never backs down from a dare.

It has quite a kick as it hits the back of her throat, and a peel of laughter is drawn from her. "That is... rough!"

She has drunk better from the various illegal stills that have peppered Voyager, the best being that using of all things leola root. Damnit, she wishes that she knew who had made that, she would give them a medal.

"Rack 'em up!" and she makes herself comfortable, unzipping her jacket and stretching the neck of her undershirt.

It is clear that he is unused to responding to commands, so she adds 'please,' leaning forwards to pat his upper arm and smiling winsomely. In truth, he is a bit of 'hard work', and she thinks that his self-obsession is making any consideration of a ... shore leave... experience less appealing.

He slugs back the next, and she follows suit, hoping that she is back on Voyager for a hangover shot before the full effcts of this home-made hooch knocks her for six.

He starts to talk. He talks about his time in the sunlight, the empire he planned, to be better and brighter than that of Rome.

"Similar principles, panem et circenses for those normals..." He says this with a sneer she tries to ignore.

Whatever she may be, and agreed it isn't an Augment, she has never considered herself as normal.

"But," he says, regally, "without the violence. It was peaceful, it was forward-thinking... It would have had Earth, Terrans, take a prime spot in the cosmos..."

He stands up waving his arms. "We would have been prime! No Federation to weaken us! Think, Captain! The Alpha Quadrant and beyond could have been ours!"

She cannot help the small start as it all becomes clear, the point perhaps where the 'Mirror Universe' she has read of came to be. A differing in the Augment outcome. Luckily, mistakes this start as enthusiasm for his story, so he continues to talk about the great plans, that no horizon was unreachable.

"But then, the wars came. In the middle of our life's journey, I found myself in a dark wood..." and she gives him the shot this time. This is certainly something she can understand. He talks about the gamble with the SS Botany Bay, his chance—perhaps last chance—to save his people.

"You understand, do you not?" his intense gaze burns through her eyes and into the back of her skull. "You understand that responsibility, too! Surely!" He demands, waving the shot glass. "The pain and loneliness of making decisions for your people. Standing with them, forever apart!" he gets more of the potent potion.

"Here, on this planet of dust and lost dreams, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I pine for what was, what should have been! I share it with no-one. Instead, I use my intellect to keep us alive, I try all things, I achieve what I can." He orates.

She can see what a powerful orator he might have been. How dangerous in his youth, powerful, magnetic, able to turn many to his words. Now, like a lion caged, he is trapped not only on this world of despair, but in his dreams of power and conquest. These dreams no longer belong in the world he finds himself. He is an anachronism.

She has tears in her eyes. Spit and curses, that hooch has gone to her head. She damn straight does understand.

"To the loneliness of command!" she raises her glass, they both down.

She may have gradually become slightly maudlin with the drink, but he is more of an angry drunk. He has moved onto his history where it intersects with the Federation. He rails at Kirk, his inability to see the grand picture, and ultimately their burial on this planet, shortly to be devastated by the unexpected destruction of Ceti Alpha VI.

"KIRK!" he roars, "From Hell's heart I stab at thee!" he is nearly incoherent in rage. His anger is rabid, long cherished and held dear. She thinks that perhaps it is this anger that has kept him alive, kept all of them alive. He rants that Kirk destroyed their dreams, is responsible for all the deaths and failure. He is incandescent as he curses.

Her mind wheels off. It focuses at a place that always gives her strength, gives her purpose. Chakotay. He also was angry, a decision made by the federation, enacted by another great captain, Picard, setting off a series of events leading to another planet in ashes. Chakotay's home-world. He also, by all accounts, was incandescent in rage, which cooled to a deep burning anger. Her angry warrior indeed. However, he has a great soul, a depth of spirit which kept his humanity. She might have given him peace, but he, himself never crossed the line that made his dreams more important than the safety of his people, or harming innocents. He also lost his family, all he held dear, and banished initially to the Badlands and then to the Delta Quadrant. But for his people, he could work with the Federation, with her...

She realizes, finally, that this takes a very specific form of bravery, to put others ahead of your anger. She cannot see Chakotay ever being this man in front of her. It is time for her to forget her attraction to magnetic dangerous men of limited morals, and finally accept that which she has run from. If it isn't too late.

She jerks back to the present, to the pacing Khan. "I will see him hurt! I will do worse than kill him! I will hurt him. I will go on hurting him! I shall leave him as I was left! As he left my wife! one of his crew! Marooned for all eternity, in the center of a dead planet... buried alive!"

Wow! If she had ever thought she had a vendetta, it was nothing on this one! Though in truth the words do resonate, and if she had been into declaiming as a captain, she could see the words fitting her ... actions... over Ransom. Dammit!

The cargo bay is being harder to focus on, this poison must be pretty strong. Even Khan, with whatever augmented metabolism he has, is starting to be unsteady on his feet, and less comprehensible with his raving. He slumps against the wall, slowly easing down to the floor, as she eases her head against the table. She may be done here.

She catches his last, semi-mumbled ramblings about Klingons and revenge.

"bortaS bIr jablu'DI' reH QaQqu' nay", she mumbles back, before passing out.

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 _there we go! please comment! [and also encourage me over the 2 fics currently slowly in progress] Thankyou._


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